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Gopyrigbt 1912 by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved. NT TL- NT -TP J ■ A TL I I ,JM£W 1 QIQdSjNOtiOUQd. iQAiiyDooLr Why This Will Be A SHORT, MILD WINTER By Prof. JOHN T. TIMMONS. Birdlawn Conservatory, Ohio. MANY definite conclusions may be arrived at. In recounting the weather conditions in a genera) way, if the right sort of attention is given a number of little, but vastly important things in nature Nature, like everything else goes to extremes, and when we experience a very severe drouth, we are cer tain to see it followed by an unusually wet time Severe cold is always followed by very warm weather, and intense heat produces a cool wave Only 12 LETTERS in NEW Chinese ALPHABET CHINA *h to have a brand new alphabet. As the present Chinese alphabet con sists of 8,000 characters, the change s going to be on< of the most remarkable in the history of letters, for the now al phabet will contain only 42 characters. Hitherto the unfortunate Chinese children have been forced to memorize at least eight thousand ideograms or charac ters. "Hleroghlyphics," we generally call them, the queer little quirks and quirleques. The students cannot begin to learn anything, to understand anything or communicate even in the simplest manner until they have mem orized these eight thousand Ideograms. Then they begin to study in earnest, and have many more thousand to learn, for every one of the queer Chinese marks means some sound, some syllable or some object, and there is a different, one for everything. But now the awakened Chinese are pre paring a brand new Chinese alphabet. And joy should reign throughout China, for an alphabet of forty-two characters will in the future take the place of the thousands upon thousands of queer characters. The method in which the Chinese have gone about to make for themselves a brand Why Factory CHIMNEYS Are Always Built HIGH IN some parts ot the country the most con spicuous evidences of man’s handiwork are factory chimneys, their tall shafts decorating the landscape in the same manner that church steeples do in farming villages and country towns. It has come to be con sidered a matter of course that factory chim neys should be high, but why such hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent in their construction and what are the important principles involved in their presence are mat ters little considered. The taller the chimney, then, the better is the draft, and the better the draft the more thoroughly is the fuel consumed and the hot ter the tiro burn. But why? Again, the colder the day. the better does a fire burn. Every housewife knows that. Hut again, why? Once more, the stronger is the wind blowing (unless it is blowing down the chimney) the better does a lire burn. And once more, why? And yet again, a file burns better by night than by day, but why? The answer to these tour problems is the same The draft in a chimney is caused by the difference in weight between the volume of heated gases inside the chimney and the cooler air outside. To give an illustration: A piece oi wood that lias lain in the water a long time rises up through the water slowly, because the oifierence in weight is not great. A cork pops up quite rapidly, because it is so much lighter. A bubble ot air slips up through the water more quickly still because it is lighter than the cork. Again, a cork will pop up to the surface more quickly in salt water than in fresh, because the salt water is heavier and the cork is proportion ately more light. Now the lightness ot heated air lies in its heat, but most of the gases that rise from a fire are really as much lighter than air as cork is lighter than water, so that they must rise in the same way. if the air is hot above the chimney the contrast bet wen the smoke and gases from the fire and the air is not so great, and the vapors disperse sluggishly, but if the air is crisp and cold, the’ gases rise straight up, causing a greater draft. There fore, a cold day is better for tiring, because the contrast is greater; night air is better for firing than dai air, because night air is colder; a wind is better than a calm for fir ing. because it blows away the smoke and heated vapors instead of allowing them to A- _■ ■■ .... —, -j .., ._ ..... Scores of SIGNS Given Us by Nature Enable Us to FORETELL WEATHER CONDITIONS Three severe Winters never follow each other in succession. The Winter of 1909 and ’lO, and that of 1911 and ’l2 were both severe. The country experienced more freezing weather, and more zero temperatures than had been experienced in two consecutive Winters for a period of about twenty years. The Winter of 1890 and ’9l was a very mild, open Winter, and tn many sections tt did not freeze the ground enough during the entire Winter to bear the weight of a horse. The tw'o Winters previous to that one w’ere very severe. Easter Sunday is regulated by the Zodiac. Days and nights are equal on the 21st. of March, and the first Sunday after the first full moon after the days and nights are equal, is always Easter. The moon is full the next day after the days and nights are equal next March, and the next day after the full moon is Sunday, and must be Easter, and it is on March 23rd. which is the earliest that day can possibly come It will not occur that early again for years. Selected Spring weather seldom comes until after Easter Sunday, and this means we will have a very early Spring. When there is a very heavy crop of grain and hay, iho Winter following is, in nine cases out of ten. a mild, open Winter. The crops were very heavy the past season taking the country over. new alphabet are described In a French pub lication as follows; •The task was entrusted to a learned com mittee, composed of Chow-Hi-Chu, the secre tary of the Chinese Legation at Home, the ad junct secretaries Wan and Chou, and Solon ghello, professor of Chinese and Japanese at the School of Oriental Languages in Naples, and one of the greatest polyglots in the world. These gentlemen have studied all known al phabets and combined them to form one which shall represent every sound in the Chinese tongue. The alphabet adopted by them consists of forty-two characters, of which twenty-three are vowels and nineteen consonants "Os the vowels, four are taken from the Greek, four from Russian, five from Latin and one from Chinese. Os the nine remaining vowels, two are modified or elongated signs, and seven are reversed ideograms. “Os the consonants, fourteen are from Latin, three from Russian and two from the Greek. With these it is possible to write all the words used in the vulgar tongue in any part of China. "The innovation has been received with enthusiasm, especially in the southern prov inces, and it is believed it will be in general official use by the end of the year.” form a heated cloud envelope in the region , of the top of the chimney, and a tall chimney is better thau a short one. because it rises higher into the colder air. In figures, a chim ney 175 feet high will cause coal to burn at exactly three and one-quarter as rapid a rate, giving more heat and power to the fire. Tall chimneys also benefit a neighborhood by giv ing more room for poisonous gases to escape, but the true reason of their construction is the added power they give to the furnaces below. Country people have a habit to-day of stepping out of doors in the morning and looking at their neighbor's chimneys. If the smoke is sagging down about the chimney, acting sluggish and hanging about in clouds, they declare it is going to rain, or snow, depending upon the season. But if the smoke is seen issuing straight up from the chimneys, in long, somewhat spiral columns and disappearing into the higher air. they declare it will be fair weather How a Harvard Professor Discovered MICE That SING DR CHARLES A. COBURN, of the Psych logical Laboratory at Harvard University, performed a series of interesting experiments on nice that can sing. At the beginning of the experiment the chirps were low but they gradually became louder. The ‘song” of the mouse Dr. Coburn likens to the sweet and varied warbling of a canary. Every note was “clear and dis tinct." Observers state that the "song" is an irregular mix ture of chirps and thrills with here and there a snarling, smacking sound followed by a low murmur But the majority of those who have heard "singing" in mice have assumed that it is due to a diseased condition of the lungs or of the vocal organs. Last year, while working one evening in his study, Dr. Coburn heard a series of sounds which seemed to cone from above the ceiling. At the time they were thought to resemble the soft chirp of a bird Shortly afterward some wild mice were needed for breeding experiments and, by means of a trap, two mice, a male and a female, were captured in the room. These animals, while being taken to the psycho logical laboratory, produced sounds like those previous ly heard in the room and they continued to do so at intervals after being placed in a laboratory cage. A few days after their capture the male escaped. The YOE MIGHT TRY - To Mend Gloves. \T7 THEN a hole first appears in a glove turn the glove inside out, ' y and, drawing the edges of the hole together, stick a piece of leather court plaster over it. The court plaster not only holds the parts together, but being leather makes it very strong. > For Shoelace Tips. TIE tips of shoelaces sometimes come off quite good laces. In this case they may be replaced with impromptu tags of sealing wax. Cut the tag, smear it over with sealing-wax, then press it to a point while the wax is still warm. Savh.g Tablecloths. T ABLECLOTHS will last much longer if. when they are washed, they are folded one week in three and the next in four. If folded exactly the same way each time the folds will wear into holes, while the rest of the cloth is good. A Celery Seasoning. a N excellent celery seasoning may be made at home. Get five cents’ / \ worth of celery seed, run it through the finest knife of the grinder i * or break it in a mortar; mix with about ten times its bulk of table salt and bottle. For Canned Fruit. TO prevent strawberries and other canned fruits from forming mold put a layer of absorbent cotton in the mouth of each jar or can. Any mold that may form will cling to the cotton, leaving the fruit clean. To REFORM Bad BOYS he bad child is as much a problem of the State as of the home, ' and a German monograph, just issued in Berlin, shows clearly that i -*• when the badness of the child is due to a weakness of moral fibre i *it is more a case for the State than for the home. At the present time (there is absolutelj nothing done for the feeble-willed child. There are in stitutions for the feeble-minded children, there are schools for those who are dull and backward and learn slowly, there are plenty of places for idiots, imbeciles and insane, and there are reformatories for those whose badness has reached a certain climax. But for the child who is feeble willed, the boy who may turn out a thief or the girl who is likely to walk the streets simply as a result of bad example and lack of moral resistance, for these nothing is done until it is too late to do them real service. I Goodness and badness, of course, are relative terms, but it is the duty of the State to sense public opinion sufficiently to determine what kind of badness is punishable and what kind is not. The State, one might men tion, has not shown itself to be infallible in this regard. ; “It is a curious law,” he says, “which takes care of the criminal but does nothing to prevent the criminal. It is a curious civilization which ' spends millions upon educating the savage, but nothing upon educating the ' children who live at its back doors.” He might well add that it is a curious thing that in a civilization like that of the United States, which prides I itself so much upon its “business efficiency,” the State should lavish public money on jails in which to keep these feeble-willed persons when they have become confirmed criminals, but should begrudge the small sums acessary to support training schools or camps where the children might w turned into valuable and useful citizens. Badness is a disease far more easily prevented than cured. 2U&-- - ——'|| I f -■ i jßhl i IW' I ,a I This is the “Song" a Mouse Sings, According to a Harvard Professor. IkfIESTHALF CFWIKTEE. COLD. f FlastHalf ofWirter. Cold. II F\ Vestt MildWilttee.. L . How the Markings on the Back of a Caterpillar Foretell the Weather. All migratory birds were later In passing south this season than usual, and yet many species of birds that all go when the Winter is to be bad, remain if the weather is apt to be mild. A search in our parks and throughout the rural sections reveals many of the Summer feathered friends of humanity still lingering with us. When the Winter is very severe thousands of robins have been known to remain in Ohio and Pennsylvania all Winter feeding on berries and various sorts of seeds that grew in the wild places. When the Winter is mild the robins all go south, or if any flocks remain they stay far up in Canada. The husks on corn, and the chaff on wheat and oats were light the past season, and w-henever the Winters are severe, these are always very heavy and cling very close about the grains. Thousands of people have faith in the caterpillar sign of Winter. When the hundreds of caterpillars that creep about in Autumn are dark all along their back and creep about until after freezing weather, the Winter is cer tain to be long and severe, but when the dark is only found on a part of the worm’s back, or it is not very distinct, the Winter will not be so severe. if the dark is in the front, the worst weather will be in the fore part of Winter, and if the dark is in OVER every large city hangs suspended a menace, a threat of death, which year by year drops nearer and binds more closely its smothering embrace. It is a pall of poisoned air. Scores of diseases and weaknesses ascribed to direct causes find their origin in the gradual poisoning influence of an atmosphere year by year becoming less flt for human consumption. Dust and sus pended substances in the air are bad, but the chemical changes which the atmosphere re veals are a danger far more serious. The knowledge is general that one sleeps much better in the country, but few people seem to realize that this is an utterly incor rect way of putting it. Sleep is a normal thing, and under the more normal conditions of country life one sleeps; in the city, there fore, the point is that man does not sleep sufficiently. City dwellers have acclimatized themselves to a certain extent, and they suc ceed in doing with far less sleep than men and women in rural districts. But this is merely a natural device to overcome a griev ous ill. We do not sleep in the city because in sleep we breathe more slowly and the vital properties in the air are too low to enable us to keep going on the slow breathing. There- Why Respectable Men Wore BEARDS in BIBLE TIMES female was mated with a tame mouse and produced, during the period of observation, thirty-three indi viduals. None of these offspring of the mating of a singing” mouse with a non-isnging individual produced unusual sounds, nor has “singing" appeared either in the second or the third generation. The ' singing" individual was. so far as could be as certained, a common house mouse. She was somewhat larger than the ordinary wild female, but no other external peculiarities were noted. She was extremely active and savage and her mate always bore the marks of her teeth. An attempt to mate her with a second tame male resulted in the death of the latter. No definite time for "singing” was noted, except three or four days before and for six or seven days after the birth of a litter. It was observed, also, that the individual "sang” sometimes when frightened. The sound is best described as a rapid whole-toned trill involving the tones c and d. The quality of the tone resembled somewhat that of a fife or flute, but each tone ended with a slight throaty click. The tones were uttered at the rate of four or five per second in groups of varying size. Sometimes a group occupied one second, sometimes a. long as ten seconds. As a rule, the tones of a group were not clear and distinct, but, instead, were uttered so rapidly as to seem connected. The throaty click was more noticeable in the case of the last tone of a group. Often the “sing ing” would be continued for a period of ten or fifteen minutes with rests between groups. Why CITY FOLKS SLEEP Less Than Country People THE beard has been considered a sign of manhood among most ancient na tions, and the Hebrews were no ex ception to this rule. In fact there Is a rec ord of a war that was brought about because of the shaving of the beards of the emissaries sent by David to bring messages of consola tion to Hanun upon the death of his father, King of Ammon. The tale is told in Il- Samuel, x, 4-17, and there we learn that when Hanun suspected the messengers of David of being spies, he shaved off one-half of their beards and sent them back, and that the men were "greatly ashamed” and waited in Jericho until their beards had grown again. David considered this a valid cause for de claring war, and under the generalship of Joab the Ammonites and their allies were defeated. The Egyptians, as proved by the monu ments, believed in shaving the face, and in the story of Joseph it is related that before he was brought into the presence of Pharaoh the middle or toward the rear, the weather will worse in the middle of Winter months, or toward Spring. When the wind stays in the south after a rain it is not apt to turn cold, for the high barometeric pres sure coming in from the far northwest is not of enough power to push across the southern part of our conti nent. and It passes over Canada and does not produce a drop of the temperature of any marked degree. All the Autumn rainy periods have been followed by south winds, and no severe changes have been noted Temperatures in the far north are not as low as usual in the Autumn months when we are going to have a mild Winter, and records show it was very mild north the past Autumn. Rats and mice are not seeking Winter quarters, and squirrels have not been observed storing away a large quantity of nuts for their Winter consumption. The nut crop was large, but when this occurs the wild game usually let their food remain out in the open, but when nuts are scarce, the little animals are always very busy storing away all they can find. A judicious and thoughtful observer can see many reasons why this will not be a severe Winter. No study is more interesting, and it actually pays to care fully study the causes and effect in all such matters. If understood, nature is an open book fore we wake up, and with the quicker breath ing of wakefulness established enough air is secured. Digestion works badly in the city, not only because the lack of oxygen means less appe tite, but also because the oppressivnesess ot crowded streets and homes leads to sluggisa habits on the part of the body. With slower digestion processes must be coupled the add ed nervous strain accompanying a condition in which nourishment is not secured quickly enough. When to this is added the strain ot city life, the conditions are seen to be bad, even without considering the ever-increasing evil influence of the envelope of noxious gases hanging overhead. The lower levels of the atmosphere under modern conditions are not renewed as rap idly as they are made foul, and so little by little the belt of air immediately nearest to the earth is robbed of its life-giving powers. When it is remembered that the air lives in layers j>r strata and that the winds also are more or less confined to these strata, it will be seen that there is not much opportunity for the various layers to become mixed. Thus the upper levels of air might be pure when the lower levels are quite foul. Impure air, growing worse and worse continually, is mak ing it harder for man to live, especially in the neighborhood of cities. he “shaved himself” (Gen., xll, 14), this being the first mention of shaving in the Bible, and in any literature. , The beard was worn untrimmed, and, in fact, the Hebrew was forbidden to “round the corners of your heads....or mar the corners of thy beard” (Lev., xix, 27), be cause such was a custom among some of the idolaters around them. The beard was so highly esteemed as the mark of respectability and standing in the community that it was sworn by, and it was considered a greater insult to cut off the beard than to cut off the nose among many ancient people. Th prophet Isaiah can find nn mru-e fell ing metaphor for expressing shame than "The nrd shall shave with a rq-K— and it shall also consume the beard" (vli, 20). When in deep distress or mourning the sufferers tore out hair and beard as a sign of degradation. “On all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off'’ (Is. xv, 2). The priest was forbidden to shave or trim his hair or beard, as an especial mark of holiness (Lev., xxi, 5), and many super stitions gathered around the beard. When combing hair and beard it was con sidered essential to destroy all of the hairs that fell out, so as to prevent their falling into the hands of personal enemies who might in this way be able to work evil against them. This is one of the oldest superstitions known to men, and one of the most universal, having its believers even to day, especially among the Ignorant. It was the custom among the Hebrews in the time of David to salute one another by kissing the beard, as is to be read, “And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss it” (2 Sam., xx, 9), and pos sibly on this account, even though the beard was not trimmed, it was carefully kept and perfumed with odorous oils. Under one condition only was the Hebrew ordered to shave the hair, beard, and even the eyebrows, and that was when he bad been healed of leprosy and was to take the final cleansing ritual bath (Lev., xvi, 8). These provisions were applied most strict ly by the ancient Hebrews, and even by the Jews when they returned from Babylonian exile, but in the second century B. C., when Greek culture had made great inroads into Palestine, the Greek fashion of clean shaven faces was adopted by all who strove to he in favor with Antiochus, the Syrian ruler, and even the high priest, Jason, imi tated the new fashion. This was fought against strenuously by the Maccabees, who cited the old law and tried to restore ancient customs.